Because the Koninklijke Metaalunie (KMU) has not agreed to the collective labor agreement, companies that are affiliated with the largest entrepreneurs’ organization for small and medium-sized companies in the metal sector are threatening new actions.
Trade unions FNV Metaal, CNV Vakmensen and De Unie have announced that they have reached an agreement with the employers’ negotiator Federation of Employers’ Organizations for Technology (FWT). Employees will gain an average of 7.4 percent in the coming year, youth wages will also rise.
Negotiations on the Metal & Technology collective labor agreement, which include nearly 320,000 people, stalled last October. The sector includes tens of thousands of companies in the small metal industry, the installation and insulation sector, bodywork construction and gold and silversmithing.
To threaten
The fact that the KMU did not agree with the new collective labor agreement is something the trade unions regret. FNV negotiator Jacqie van Stigt calls it ‘incomprehensible’ and hopes that the union will ‘sign the collective labor agreement soon’. CNV negotiator Bernard Zijlstra says that the KMU will have ‘a few more days to jump on the moving train’. If this does not happen, new actions threaten.
In the last months of 2021, ‘usually several hundred people’ went on strike more than twenty times because of the stalled collective labor agreement negotiations. The FWT said it regretted that. ‘Strikes do not bring a collective agreement any closer,’ said the employer negotiator at the time. “A return to the negotiating table will.”